Pennsylvania Journal; INS AND OUSTS OF POLITICS, EDUCATION AND ART

By WILLIAM ROBBINS, Special to the New York Times

Published: March 13, 1982

PHILADELPHIA, March 12—
One seat in the United States Senate is empty today because of the resignation Thursday of Harrison A. Williams Jr., who was convicted in the Federal Abscam investigation.

But Harry P. Jannotti shows no inclination to do what the Senator did, a situation that has confounded the City Council here and delighted Mr. Jannotti's partisan blue-collar neighbors.

Despite being found guilty in the bribery and conspiracy case, Mr. Jannotti continues to represent the North Philadelphia neighborhood where he runs his tavern. Two other Council members who were caught in the Abscam net did step down.

Under the city charter, the Council cannot expel a member. So the Council's Ethics Committee refused late last month to consider a resolution that would bar Mr. Jannotti from meetings and other legislative duties. And on Thursday the Council rejected another move to oust him.

After his conviction, Mr. Jannotti gave up his position as majority leader and took a leave of absence until a Federal district judge overturned the verdict. He then resumed his seat.

The conviction was reinstated Feb. 11 by an appellate court, but Mr. Jannotti has refused to take another leave. He will automatically lose his seat when he is sentenced.

On the day the Ethics Committee decided that there was nothing it could do, supporters showered Mr. Jannotti with hugs and kisses. ''The people are talking,'' he exulted.

For Marvin Wachman, there will be no gentle slide into retirement in his last few months as president of Temple University. Before he leaves the old North Philadelphia institution in July, he faces the painful task of putting some faculty members out of work.

The problem is that enrollment at Temple is declining and has been for several years. Since 1977 it has fallen by 4,000, to about 32,000. Fewer students mean fewer faculty members are needed, especially in the College of Education and the College of Liberal Arts.

Fewer students also mean less tuition, a major source of revenue for the school, which will be 100 years old in 1984. That loss, along with the fact that state aid has not kept pace with inflation, has forced the university to cut its academic budget $13.2 million over the next three years.

The cutbacks do not take into consideration reductions in Federal aid proposed by President Reagan, according to John Rumpf, the dean of faculties and vice president for academic affairs.

''It's horrendous,'' said Dr. Rumpf. ''It affects the lives of people. It's going to affect tenured faculty, people who have come to feel that tenure means a lifetime job.''

The campus chapter of the American Association of University Professors, a faculty union, has asked for a reprieve. But unless Temple's Board of Trustees agrees to a delay, layoff notices will be sent out by the end of March to as many as 300 of the 2,500 faculty members.

The vigil will begin on Independence Mall here as daylight fades into dusk on March 27, to protest what the Archbishop of Philadelphia has called ''an offense against God and humanity.''

John Cardinal Krol, one of the first members of the Roman Catholic hierarchy in the United States to speak out against nuclear weapons, has asked his 1.4 million parishioners to join in, raising their voices in favor of nuclear disarmament.

In lending his support to the interfaith vigil being organized by the Quakers, the Cardinal signed a declaration that says in part, ''The wholesale destruction threatened by nuclear weapons makes their planned use or even the threat of their use morally indefensible.''

The Democrats had a problem. Gov. Dick Thornburgh was so formidable that nobody wanted to run against him. Now they have a solution. Representative Allen E. Ertel, a 45-year-old four-term Democrat from the heavily Republican 17th Congressional District, has acceded to the urgings of party leaders and announced his candidacy for Governor. James R. Lloyd Jr., a 32-yearold State Senator from Philadelphia, abandoned his own race for the state's top job and agreed to run for Lieutenant Governor.

The Democratic State Committee has also endorsed Cyril R. Wecht, an Allegheny County Commissioner and former coroner, to run against Senator John Heinz, another tough opponent.

The decisions will give the Democrats a balanced slate if all three survive a May 18 primary, and their chances are regarded as good because they have no opposition that has a substantial following. Mr. Ertel, a Protestant, is from the center of the state. Mr. Lloyd, a Roman Catholic, is from the east and Dr. Wecht, a Jew, is from Pittsburgh in the west.

An indication of the size of the Democrats' problem came the same day as Mr. Ertel's announcement. Presidents of three Philadelphia union groups, locals of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, the Transport Workers Union and the International Longshoremen's Association, said they would support the Governor.

''We rarely support Republicans,'' John Morris of the teamsters said. But he added, ''Thornburgh's performance and his willingness to deal with us are important, even with his conservatism.''

It seems to be coincidental, but three of Philadelphia's most prestigious cultural institutions find themselves without top executives at the same time.

The latest departure was that of Barbara Weisberger, the founder and director of the Pennsylvania Ballet, an artistic success that has run into financial hard times. She decided to resign after the ballet's board asked her to take a leave of absence while its new president, Charles Rannells, tried to solve the economic problems.

Earlier, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, a victim of chronic financial deficits, lost its art director, Jean Sutherland Boggs, who resigned to return to her native Canada as head of its National Gallery.

Shortly afterward, Seymour Rosen, executive director of the Philadelphia Orchestra, resigned in a dispute with its board. He has since been named artistic director of Carnegie Hall.

''What this orchestra needs is a smooth S.O.B.,'' said Mr. Rosen, a musician himself, as he was cleaning out his desk here.''I'm not smooth.''

Leaderless the Philly Pops is not. Young and brash, it may be, with its success in winning the hearts and ears of Philadelphia in less than three years. And it is planning an encore to a performance on Nov. 16, 1980, that people are still talking about.

That was the night when the Pops celebrated the Phillies' victory in the World Series with a little help from Tug McGraw, who had saved many a game as a relief pitcher. Accompanied by the 80-piece orchestra, Mr. McGraw recited ''Casey at the Bat.'' A mighty musical blare punctuated his final rising line: ''Mighty Casey had struck out.''

Now Moe Septee, the Pops's irreverent producer, is negotiating with the Harlem Globe Trotters for a production that would help mark the city's 300th anniversary. If all goes as planned, the Globe Trotters will strut and dribble, pass and preen on the operatic stage of the old American Academy of Music to orchestral strains of their theme song, ''Sweet Georgia Brown.''